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Ok, I just got done watching fight science, I'm a bit of a mixed martial arts fan and I can't believe some of the things I saw and heard according to the tech's on this show. It was hosted by national geographic though so I can't really say its a bunch of mystic jargon, they were using cameras and dummies to record this stuff as accurately as possible according to the show.

My big question is, according to the show, a Muay Thai knee, from a champion Muay Thai artist, a spinning back kick from a tkd champ, straight kick from a karate well you get the idea, they tested lots of martial arts techniques from people that had performed these techniques on some pro level or a sort and yet when they compared the knee of the Muay Thai champ to the Dim Mak technique of the Ninjitsu artist and both had enough force to compress the chest plate 2 inches and cause enough internal trauma to kill a person. No big deal, plenty of martial art techniques can kill a person, the crazy part is the Muay Thai strike is a knee delivered from a drawn back leg while holding the head of the dummy so it absorbs all the force and the leg even has 2 or 3 feet to build of power, the Dim Mak on the other hand was performed from about 1 to 1 and a half feet away with a hammer fist.

I don't know if many of you read much about martial arts but this just doesnt happen, even in the pro's nobody touches the raw power of Muay Thai techniques for destructive force. Everyone thats ever fought Mirko "CroCop" Filipovic for instance, agrees that his Muay Thai kick is by far the most powerful they have ever felt. Many others can tell you plain and simple that usually a single punch will not win a fight without following it up with more punches but a single knee can and often does win fights, they do incredible damage. You can see this for urself, take a pillow and punch it haha, then knee it, you'll be able to tell the difference even the average person can never reach knee power with a punch.

Even a pro boxers punch was no match for the Muay Thai knee, and I mean a huge guy, probably a heavyweight boxer, the Muay Thai champ is probably about 155-160 where as the Ninjitsu artist was definitely 150 or less. Now I'm not an idiot, I've read a lot on martial arts, thousands of pages, I've read about every major martial art for sure, including Ninjitsu and I just don't see this being possible.

I've read even the woo side of most martial arts, including Ninjitu's claims of "chakra" and other energies inside the body that can be focused to do superhuman things, but this really is superhuman and I don't think chakra had anything to do with it.

On the show when the boxer hits for about 1000lb of force they take apart the technique, same with the muay thai knee, they explain the transfer of power from the feet to the limbs and show how the force is generated but when they showed the dim mak they didnt do this, they basically just showed it and said what it did but not how.

So, since the show left a gap I was wondering if you guys could fill me in on ways this would be possible. But please don't just tell me its centrifugal force or plain old training. Everyone on that show had years and years of training and some couldnt even match the dim mak fist with their techniques using their legs and full body weight although they were larger or the same size as the ninjitsu artist. Guys on here did things like striking at around 40 feet per second, which trust me, is amazing. The tkd or tae kwon do arist had the fastest reaction time which was absolutely insane, but thats something u can train, a trained soldier will react faster than an average citizen, this I understand, but 2 soldiers should be fairly even, but in this cast the ninjitsu soldier did something the other soldiers couldnt even when they had (for sake of the soldier analogy) a larger military.

I only saw the first hour (taped the rest while watching the Shatner roast). As far as the non-weapons segments, it seemed that they were acknowledging that each martial art had one particular technique that seemed to outdo all the others.

I love the graphics, but was a little put off by their showing some mystical "energy" flowing up from the floor to the fist. They should have just highlighted the specific muscles and bones that come into play. They also didn't account much for the mass of the practitioner. Sure, the kung-fu guy's punch wasn't as powerful as the boxer's, but he weighed about 100 pounds less, also.

I would love to have a shot at that crash-test dummy myself. We have a much more affordable version that we use, but the numbers are only relative and not in specific foot-pounds or such. I'd also like to see how my balance stacks up on those plum flower risers. (23 years martial arts experience).

The entire show was a bit too "made-for-TV", with lots of footage of the extremely muscular and handsome Aussie TKD guy doing things that the less-telegenic experts would have done better...

There was a lot of footage of contemporary Wushu and "competition" weapons forms that had nothing to do with fighting.

Some of the stuff was either silly or misinformed. For instance, there was a lot of talk about "Dim Mak" in association with the "ninja" of rather dubious qualifications. To my knowledge, Dim Mak is associated with "internal" Chinese arts and I don't recall any ninjitsu discipline having anything to do with the purported disruption of Chi.
Instead, our ninja performed an admittedly-powerful chest strike to the area of the heart. Big revalation that such a strike may kill; boxers have suffered fatalities from such blows.

The opening segment was about the "legend" of a one-blow knockout. Legend? Did any of these people spend any time watching boxing matches?
Interesting that the boxer delivered the most powerful punch, but not unexpected.

The speed segment was interesting as well. Some of the artists were capable of delivering strikes at the rate of around 100 per minute, or 3 every two seconds. Not bad; I seem to recall that various Wing Chun stylists could manage something on the order of six punches per second using a sort of circular technique.

I have to admit that the two big strong guys breaking up a lot of concrete looked impressive. I wouldn't want that 275-pounder tackling me!

The weapons segment gave us pretty much what I expected; short, light weapons are fast, longer, heavier weapons hit harder, flexible weapons hit hard but are hard to control.
To kill someone at a distance-shoot 'em. Would have been interesting to see a Kyujutsu practitioner rather than the Kyudo guy... I have seen a very few demos of the use of the combat bow.
The limitations of the shuriken were manifest; no penetration.

All in all, I thought the 2-hour show was a little "gussied-up" for TV, and found several credulous repetitions of legend as fact. Overall, pretty interesting though.

I'm still inclined to think of contemporary Wushu as having much more to do with gymnastics than fighting.

A number of the other forumites agreed that they let the Aussie TKD guy do a lot of the weapons stuff because he looked much cuter than the chunky Japanese kenjutsu master...

Ok, I just got done watching fight science, I'm a bit of a mixed martial arts fan and I can't believe some of the things I saw and heard according to the tech's on this show. It was hosted by national geographic though so I can't really say its a bunch of mystic jargon, they were using cameras and dummies to record this stuff as accurately as possible according to the show.

My big question is, according to the show, a Muay Thai knee, from a champion Muay Thai artist, a spinning back kick from a tkd champ, straight kick from a karate well you get the idea, they tested lots of martial arts techniques from people that had performed these techniques on some pro level or a sort and yet when they compared the knee of the Muay Thai champ to the Dim Mak technique of the Ninjitsu artist and both had enough force to compress the chest plate 2 inches and cause enough internal trauma to kill a person. No big deal, plenty of martial art techniques can kill a person, the crazy part is the Muay Thai strike is a knee delivered from a drawn back leg while holding the head of the dummy so it absorbs all the force and the leg even has 2 or 3 feet to build of power, the Dim Mak on the other hand was performed from about 1 to 1 and a half feet away with a hammer fist.

I don't know if many of you read much about martial arts but this just doesnt happen, even in the pro's nobody touches the raw power of Muay Thai techniques for destructive force. Everyone thats ever fought Mirko "CroCop" Filipovic for instance, agrees that his Muay Thai kick is by far the most powerful they have ever felt. Many others can tell you plain and simple that usually a single punch will not win a fight without following it up with more punches but a single knee can and often does win fights, they do incredible damage. You can see this for urself, take a pillow and punch it haha, then knee it, you'll be able to tell the difference even the average person can never reach knee power with a punch.

Even a pro boxers punch was no match for the Muay Thai knee, and I mean a huge guy, probably a heavyweight boxer, the Muay Thai champ is probably about 155-160 where as the Ninjitsu artist was definitely 150 or less. Now I'm not an idiot, I've read a lot on martial arts, thousands of pages, I've read about every major martial art for sure, including Ninjitsu and I just don't see this being possible.

I've read even the woo side of most martial arts, including Ninjitu's claims of "chakra" and other energies inside the body that can be focused to do superhuman things, but this really is superhuman and I don't think chakra had anything to do with it.

On the show when the boxer hits for about 1000lb of force they take apart the technique, same with the muay thai knee, they explain the transfer of power from the feet to the limbs and show how the force is generated but when they showed the dim mak they didnt do this, they basically just showed it and said what it did but not how.

So, since the show left a gap I was wondering if you guys could fill me in on ways this would be possible. But please don't just tell me its centrifugal force or plain old training. Everyone on that show had years and years of training and some couldnt even match the dim mak fist with their techniques using their legs and full body weight although they were larger or the same size as the ninjitsu artist. Guys on here did things like striking at around 40 feet per second, which trust me, is amazing. The tkd or tae kwon do arist had the fastest reaction time which was absolutely insane, but thats something u can train, a trained soldier will react faster than an average citizen, this I understand, but 2 soldiers should be fairly even, but in this cast the ninjitsu soldier did something the other soldiers couldnt even when they had (for sake of the soldier analogy) a larger military.

Any ideas?

Hmm. Don't let my friend see this, he goes on and on about Ninjitsu (because he practised it for like a month and one of his friends still does it) and makes out like it is the ultimate in combat.

Sounds impossible to me as well, just going by what you have said and my own limited martial arts training, but I'd be interested to hear a good explanation.

I didn't see anything special in the "ninja's" blow; a fairly straightforward hammerfist. Boxers have died in the ring as a result of punches to this area, and that's with gloves on. Other athletes in other contact sports have as well.

The entire "art" of Ninjitsu is somewhat problematic, IMO. For many years, the sole practitioner/instructor was M. Hatsumi, who ran a small but select school in Japan. (some may remember him being featured in "Live and Let Die".)
Ninjitsu as practiced at that time concentrated on the "traditional" methods of combat, the specialized ninja weapons and techniques, and also concealment, stealth, and so forth.
The first Westerner to study there was Stephen Hayes, and he began writing about his experiences and publishing some books (with Hatsumi's permission, apparently) back in the early 80s.
This was the beginning of the "ninja craze" which swept through the martial-arts community at that time. Soon, much as had happened with Kung-Fu, every other MA instructor around had bought a book or two and hung out a ninja shingle. Some even claimed to have been secretly students contemporary with Hayes, or to have studied under other, more secret "masters" who conveniently had died....
We know that ninjas became a staple of action movies (they had long been part of Japanese culture, figuring prominently in Noh theater back to the reformation) where they would often appear in full black ninja fig in broad daylight...

All of which is very interesting, but the prominent Japanese feudal-era historian, Stephen Turnbull, wrote a scholarly book on the ninja that maintained that much of what we have today as ninjitsu is in fact derived from folklore and myth, and that the reality of ninja activity and techniques was much different.
This book was not greeted with much enthusiasm by many in the MA community, even though it had a glowing forward by Mr. Hatsumi himself. (they said he was being polite...)

I'm somewhat familiar with Lee's techniques, having studied JKD at one time, and a friend of mine went to one of the seminars Lee put on. He volunteered, and maintained it was no push! He had a phone book against his chest, and ended up sharply on his posterior. Recall that Lee was quite small...

Lee classified a "one-inch" and a "four-inch" punch, but the technique was similar in both cases. The blow (like all good blows) starts with the rear foot, and is a violent twisting motion with the body involving plenty of hip motion. The wrist is relaxed, and "snaps" the fist straight just before impact.

Properly done, it can be quite violent. Directed against the solar plexus, a potential knockout blow.

A lot of folks think of Lee as an egomaniacal movie-star. He was that, but he was also a serious and studious martial artist who synthesized what was most likely the basis for what we are calling "mixed martial arts" today.
His fighting techniques (as opposed to film work) were direct, simple, and fast.

Ok, yes I realize that often boxers have died from blows that are similiar to a strike with the fist but boxing makes it a lot easier to die in the ring because of the rounds, 80 soft hits to the head make even 1 more soft hit seem like a stick of dynamite regardless of the gloves being used 12oz 4oz whatever but even in pro MMA like pride and UFC nobody has ever been killed even in fights where stomping and "soccer kicking" to the head of a DOWN opponent is allowed. No deaths.

I mentioned Mirko CroCop who recently broke an opponents femur after several kicks to the same leg, not the first kick, but several. This is no big deal to me, its possible and not too amazing. If he walked straight out and did just 1 kick and snapped the guys femur then I'd be impressed. Not to mention that crocop is a heavyweight.

In this case, the 150lb ninjitsu guy hit way harder than he should have been able to and yes they did show way more of the TKD guy than anyone else. I also recall seeing what I believe was the legs of the wushu pro dancing up the plume poles so I don't think the Ninjitsu artist was the only 1 but probably the best from what the show said. My point isnt that a 1 hit knockout is impressive, its not it happens every day in MMA, not always with a fist but it happens.

What I'm saying is a lightweight striking harder or as hard as a heavyweight is flat out impossible according to basic physics. Even the show points out that your weight is a large factor in determining the power of your upper and even lower body attacks which was probably why the wushu artist hit so softly compared to the TKD and boxer but explain to how the ninjitsu artist did the same damage as the muay thai knee with his hand. Doesnt add up.

Second I would like to point out that although the show did kinda imply that the ninjitsu guy was using some kind of dim mak, I do think the ninjitsu artist knew what he was doing and has really studied traditional ninjitsu. Did anyone but me notice how everyone but him used a "Kia!" on their big hits, well except for him and the boxer, but he was the only martial artist that didnt. A small thing most wouldnt think about but in Ninjitsu you wouldnt wanna yell when your sneaking and....ya know....fighting pirates

Also I thought it was ironic that the Ninjitsu artist was the only 1 that seemed to have a sense of humor. "Come with me on a journey to your destruction!" lol thats great stuff.

What I'm saying is a lightweight striking harder or as hard as a heavyweight is flat out impossible according to basic physics. Even the show points out that your weight is a large factor in determining the power of your upper and even lower body attacks which was probably why the wushu artist hit so softly compared to the TKD and boxer but explain to how the ninjitsu artist did the same damage as the muay thai knee with his hand. Doesnt add up.

I don't want what I'm going to type here to be seen as in defense of a show like this. Overall I hate what TV and other "martial arts programs" blare about the martial arts community. On the whole we are critical of ourselves enough to not need some silly scientists stick their protruding noses into things we have already discussed extensively. What I'm doing here is just giving a reason for a scenario of a Ninjitsu martial artist having a more powerful blow with his arm to the chest than a Thai boxer would.

Many kicking martial artists can tell you, is that once your leg is above hip level, you're fighting your own flexibility to a great extent. Anything higher than hip level means your power is being descreased; sometimes dramatically, sometimes not so drammatically. It also depends on your experience with throwing kicks at higher levels. You must shift your hips, and work on your base footing in a different way. Thai fighters use kicks in two main ways: the clinch and the Thai kick. The Thai kick is a swinging, full-force modified roundhose kick, with one's shin swun into the enemy's thigh. The clinch is a MT technique where the fighter grapples with a person's head and neck, while delivering kicks and elbows into the persons head, below and around the lower body, and the chest and stomach. But the clinch is not practiced as a one-blow deafeater; it is a combinations attack, much like a Karateka's rocks and blasts. The kicks to this area are not trained to be super-powerful. The Thai fighter, while very strong, full of stamina, and agressive is taught to pulverise his enemy, not end his life in one blow.

Ninjistsu teaches that a fight should end as fast as possible. The blows are often simple, but disguised, and over-trained, but like Shotokan's trade stepping punch. The goal is death; vulnerable spots with as much aggressive power as one can muster. Also, a punch to the chest, when trained well enough, I think, is far, far more ergonomic than any sort of knee. No sort of kick can touch that power other than a flying, or a side kick.

I'm somewhat familiar with Lee's techniques, having studied JKD at one time, and a friend of mine went to one of the seminars Lee put on. He volunteered, and maintained it was no push! He had a phone book against his chest, and ended up sharply on his posterior. Recall that Lee was quite small...

Lee classified a "one-inch" and a "four-inch" punch, but the technique was similar in both cases. The blow (like all good blows) starts with the rear foot, and is a violent twisting motion with the body involving plenty of hip motion. The wrist is relaxed, and "snaps" the fist straight just before impact.

Properly done, it can be quite violent. Directed against the solar plexus, a potential knockout blow.

A lot of folks think of Lee as an egomaniacal movie-star. He was that, but he was also a serious and studious martial artist who synthesized what was most likely the basis for what we are calling "mixed martial arts" today.
His fighting techniques (as opposed to film work) were direct, simple, and fast.

Sounds like a push to me, it also looked like one on the video I saw. Admittedly, I am no expert on Lee's techniques.

As far as I know you are quite right that Lee had an mma-type of mindset, saying something along the lines of:

"A year of training in boxing and wrestling beats a lifetime in traditional arts."

I worked with the technique for a bit against my home-made PVC "Mook Jong". If you have been involved in the martial arts for a while, you can get a pretty good impression of striking force just from the physical indicators you experience on impact.
How does the target move, how does the feedback from impact "feel", and so forth.
Though I make no claims towards mastery of this particular technique, I could tell just from the impact I was generating that this was not a "pushing" technique. And I'm not nearly as quick as Lee was...

This was one of the complaints against some of Lee's techniques; only he could perform them well. Small, extremely fit, and lightning-fast, numbers of his students could not use some techniques efficiently.

It's remarkable that though Lee died in 1973, he's still a hot cover-boy in the martial-arts press.

Sounds like a push to me, it also looked like one on the video I saw. Admittedly, I am no expert on Lee's techniques.

It's not a push. I can - and have - demonstrated it... there's nothing mystical about it at all.

Punches and kicks are still subject to F = ma; Force = mass times acceleration. Acceleration happens over distance; the longer the distance, the more potential acceleration is available.

Non-one-inch punches make obvious use of distance to generate acceleration - you can see it in the motion of the body, as per the TV program. However, the so-called "1 inch punch" utilizes the internal framework of the body - the skeleton and joints - instead of the overtly visible use of distance in a karate or boxing punch.

I have no opinion of how an "internal" approach compares in force to the classical "external" punch; however, I can cite from personal experience (on both ends of the strike) that a surprising amount of force can be generated in an apparently instantaneous manner.

Bruce Lee's demonstration is an ok example... Keep in mind that Bruce Lee was almost certainly limiting the amount of force he was generating; the objective wasn't to hurt the subject, but to demonstrate that power can be generated with comparatively little visible motion. The people being demonstrated to had never seen or encountered such a technique, and were quite skeptical. (As they should have been at the time!)

If you watch Lee's demo carefully, you can see how he's using his body for the distance involved.

mercuryturrent, if u watch the show you will see a karate pro's side kick fall far short of the muay thai knee and even the spinning back kick of TKD. While yes a high kick does fight your own flexibility the muscles in the legs far outclass those in the arms. Squat 400 curl 150 kinda thing.

I watched the video again last night, i taped it the first time and while most would think that to get ANY kind of power like EVERY martial art clearly points out you have to start an attack from your feet even if its an upper body attack, but even tho the CG animation they show makes it seem as tho Glen Levy (the Ninjitsu artist) moves his feet, upon closer inspection you can see he stands still aside from hims arms and upper body in the actual footage of him and not the CG.

Another thing I would like to point out is that he is also a pro stunt man and coordinator that has done work on that new posiedon movie as well as hiliariously awesome things like playing a character on xena:warrior princess and even doing stunts and characters for episodes of power rangers. His Bio at IMDB films says that he got most of his amazing skills from training as a kid trying to be like the martial artists he saw in films. The problem was he didnt know they used wire work so he thought he could eventually train hard enough to do these things in reality. This might attribute to why when he jumped on the plumblossoms the Muay Thai champ said it seemed like he was using wires, infact in his Bio it specifically says that he can do a lot of amazing wire tricks without the wires at all.

Oh, and he has 5 black belts, so I think were counting him out if we assume his blow is all ninjitsu.

Another thing worth mentioning is, fight your own gravity all you want but I've watched pro's fighting in rings and cages and roundhouse and spinning back kicks, while slower than punches, always deal more damage. Specifically speaking there was 1 amazing spinning back kick by george saint pierre in UFC in his first fight against matt hughes that was amazing and sent hughes literally up off his feet and into the cage wall. A punch my lay you flat but I've watched hundreds of hours of MMA and never seen a punch send someone flying like this. I've also seen CroCop drop Bob Sapp with a single punch. It was to the jaw and broke sapps jaw causing him to tap immediately. Later, being interviewed sapp revealed it was a knee earlier in the fight that hurt him the most.

Fianlly, its worth mentioning that even if a punch aimed to kill should be stronger as a post above me pointed out their are 2 parts of the formula for force MASSxACCELERATION. Not only did the Ninjitsu technique start as close or closer than any of the punching techniques but he was easily one of the lightest 2 fighters on the show and hit reasonably harder than guys larger than him.

True ninjitsu blows would be aimed at being disabling or killing blows, but I highly doubt the boxer, tkd, or muay thai artists were holding anything back. Watch the video they are putting everything into these hits. Oh, and that rock-bodied TKD guy everyone has mentioned got to go at the dummy with a crobar and baseball bat during the weapons test. One of the female technicians points out that Glen Levy's hammerfist beat a baseball bat OR crobar to the HEAD.

I don't care what gets said, I've taken 4 staples to my head from being hit with a baseball bat and I've never been hit anything like what I felt that day anywhere on my body by anyone. The TKD artist wasnt a wuss either, he hit the dummy hard and with enough force to kill a person if he hit them in the head, just not as much as Glen Levy's hammerfist.

Also, its worth pointing out that Bruce Lee was a ROCK as far as tone and muscle went. Infact, according to his workout routines that are still on paper, if he really did what he wrote then he would be placed in the 100th percentile right now for strength. Incredible. Thats why he hit like a nightmare. Training. Glen Levy on the other hand, while obviously having trained 25 years and obtained 5 black belts is not incredibly muscular. Infact, he looks completely average...I suppose just like a ninja should look lol. I mean who suspects the average lookin fella?

It's not a push. I can - and have - demonstrated it... there's nothing mystical about it at all.

Non-one-inch punches make obvious use of distance to generate acceleration - you can see it in the motion of the body, as per the TV program. However, the so-called "1 inch punch" utilizes the internal framework of the body - the skeleton and joints - instead of the overtly visible use of distance in a karate or boxing punch.

I have no opinion of how an "internal" approach compares in force to the classical "external" punch; however, I can cite from personal experience (on both ends of the strike) that a surprising amount of force can be generated in an apparently instantaneous manner.

Not mystical at all?

I still think he was just pretty good at delivering a very short push very quickly. Nothing else is needed to explain what he did, at least on the videos i saw.

I think making the assumption that the only thing involved here is just being good at delivering a quick, hard, short range hammerfist is a mistake.

Its ridiculous to assume that the other martial artists couldnt do the same under the given circumstances and when you consider they all had considerable experience they shouldnt be far outclassing eachother. Even if they were, ANYONE hitting harder than a baseball bat wielded by a grown man and doing it with their HAND is not adding up in my mind.

Go get a bat at the local sports shop in ur town, take it, hit something with it then try to imagine you or anyone else doing that with your hand. Then tell me he is just good at a short range punch. I'm not saying their is "chakra" or anything supernatural involved but I know for a fact that its not just a good punch. Its ridiculous, a phenomenon at least.

Everyone and their uncle can dissagree with me and say its no big deal, but nobody alive stands up to a bat or crobar and yet martial artists fight hand to hand every day. Nobody dies. No other martial artist on the show could do what he did either. Keep in mind he isnt a champ at all, as far as his Bio said he has never even done competition martial arts. Infact, he does comedy, stand up, stunt work, wire work...he doesnt have time to be training the best technique in the world. He also wasnt a huge guy, so toss out the mass half of the mXa=F and as far as acceleration well, watch the tape, the wushu champ hits faster.

So, please explain how LIGHTER and SLOWER = MORE FORCE. I've watched it over and over in envy and I'm telling you I'm baffled. I've got hours of pro's like crocop, bas rutten, gracies, dekkers, hughes, fedor, wandy, gomi, you name the weight class and the champ and I've got them on video and they all have landed dead on blows atleast 1 time in 1 fight and in some cases it didnt even knock their opponent out. (not that all of those fighters are primarily stand up) The point is, bigger, stronger, faster, and Glen Levy hits harder than them. Thats what I want explained.

If you think its just a good punch, ok, then please tell the heavyweight champs of the world that theirs is not so good.

Nope. At least, not as I'm taking your meaning of "mystical" to be, as in "magical". Mystical can also mean highly, intensely focused through meditation and practice. In the latter definition, there is a value to "mystical visualization", just like there's a value to sports visualizations in pro athletes.

Originally Posted by Ordf. Mjau

I still think he was just pretty good at delivering a very short push very quickly. Nothing else is needed to explain what he did, at least on the videos i saw.

Well, in essence, every linear strike is just a push delivered very quickly.

I think making the assumption that the only thing involved here is just being good at delivering a quick, hard, short range hammerfist is a mistake.

Its ridiculous to assume that the other martial artists couldnt do the same under the given circumstances and when you consider they all had considerable experience they shouldnt be far outclassing eachother. Even if they were, ANYONE hitting harder than a baseball bat wielded by a grown man and doing it with their HAND is not adding up in my mind.

Go get a bat at the local sports shop in ur town, take it, hit something with it then try to imagine you or anyone else doing that with your hand. Then tell me he is just good at a short range punch. I'm not saying their is "chakra" or anything supernatural involved but I know for a fact that its not just a good punch. Its ridiculous, a phenomenon at least.

Everyone and their uncle can dissagree with me and say its no big deal, but nobody alive stands up to a bat or crobar and yet martial artists fight hand to hand every day. Nobody dies. No other martial artist on the show could do what he did either. Keep in mind he isnt a champ at all, as far as his Bio said he has never even done competition martial arts. Infact, he does comedy, stand up, stunt work, wire work...he doesnt have time to be training the best technique in the world. He also wasnt a huge guy, so toss out the mass half of the mXa=F and as far as acceleration well, watch the tape, the wushu champ hits faster.

So, please explain how LIGHTER and SLOWER = MORE FORCE. I've watched it over and over in envy and I'm telling you I'm baffled. I've got hours of pro's like crocop, bas rutten, gracies, dekkers, hughes, fedor, wandy, gomi, you name the weight class and the champ and I've got them on video and they all have landed dead on blows atleast 1 time in 1 fight and in some cases it didnt even knock their opponent out. (not that all of those fighters are primarily stand up) The point is, bigger, stronger, faster, and Glen Levy hits harder than them. Thats what I want explained.

If you think its just a good punch, ok, then please tell the heavyweight champs of the world that theirs is not so good.

1. He is the best.
2. He cheated.
3. He knows something nobody else knows.

Those are the options as I see it, either he was really better, or he cheated, or he simply is all technique but knows some technique that nobody else that i've ever seen in martial arts knows. The 3rd is highly unlikely, the first is unlickely given his bio's lifestyle with a real job and acting and doing comedy when would he train to master some amazing unheard of undiscovered technique? Finally, number 1 seems incredibly unlikely as well given that their are thousands of martial artists with more experience, larger muscles, and obviously faster martial artsits as well (the wushu artist from the show). So, I dunno exactly what or how he did...thats why I'm asking here, so people with more knowledge of the human body can explain how he kinda bent the whole MxA thing....cause if he isnt then everyone else there is an amateur, and they obviously were not, they were all champs in their own arts! They know how to put their weight into an attack for petes sake.

Also, it doesnt take a finely tuned body to hit damn hard with a bat and glen levy hit harder with his hand, so he knows something we don't, maybe there is a way to spin your arm and whip up more force at the insade hammerfist than with any other part of the body but I'll be damned if science would not have realized that by now, so you tell me what it was, afterall I'm the one originally asking the question.

Don't expect me to settle for "he punches hard" tho. Thats crap and anyone with a baseball bat will tell you thats BS.

Techique and training would account for it. Also, remember - the guys being tested are most emphatically not the top fighters in the world. It would have been much more instructive to have them perform followed by some of the UFC and NHB guys, not to mention the current heavyweight boxing champ. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the details of this... if for no other reason than it's one helluva small statistical sample.

Thing is, hitting hard is a relative term.

It's also folly to compare arts and techniques based on individuals; some people are simply better physical activities. I saw an article today where Albert Pujols was given the same test that Babe Ruth was given 85 years ago. Link here:

The show made it appear that the various "styles" presented were actually the cause of the striking power of the people doing the strikes. However this is nonsense. The one main thing responsible was the individual doing the striking, not their "style". Their body-weight and their physical strength both came into play. I doubt their "style" had anything to do with their punching power. Take a boxer weighing 130lbs and a muscular 230lb kungfu guy and I the kungfu guy will likely punch harder.

When you see people making as many as 6 strikes a second then those punches are basically fairy taps. When you punch hard you must pull your arm back to gain maximum momentum. The shorter distance you punch from the weaker the punch will be. That's why Bruce Lee's 1 inch punch was so amazing. These guys you see punching a target 6 times a second are doing it from a distance of a few inches and their punches are most definetly weak. That's why you never see pro-boxers doing those silly combinations.

Other than that the show could of done a better job explaining the physics behind combat.

Also in the previews they said they were going to "Debunk combat myths". What myths did they debunk? I didn't see them debunk any myths. Did they even mention things like "chi" or "combat ki" or other common mythologies in martial arts?

I've yet to see a documentary style program on the Martial Arts that wasn't filled with woo and didn't cater to the myths and hype surrounding them. People just want to believe that dressing up in pajamas gives them superhuman powers.

__________________"I never intend for my posts to read like I'm aggressive or confrontational, but I am so they do."
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well jmercer the reason I said he hit harder then the curren heavyweight champs like fedor and tim silva is because I've seen them both land dead on shots and not kill their opponent. The baseball bat to the head of the dummy was measured as enough to kill a human and they clearly said that glen levys punch showed numbers higher than that. Thus, ipso facto, if fedor hit like glen levy, he would have a good chance of killing his opponent. That just seems like logic to me.

yes the show did make it seem as if each style was linked to each of the abilities they stressed in each person but you have to admit that its likely the balance of glen levy is infact from his ninjitsu training. The kind of balance that makes other martial artists wobble and fall is not a passive trait last time I checked. Ok, some kid is 5 and can play the piano like a pro, i've seen that on TV b4 too, but thats fingers not your whole body. They also pointed out that glen was somehow taking advantage of every bone in his foot at the same time to maintain this balance? I dunno how thats possible either, but I highly doubt he was born with it.

dustin, the 130lb and 230lb guys hitting power is what is cuasing this argument, glen levy's little 150lb TOPS frame is supporting more power than the 200lb guy WITH A CROBAR. Also, I don't care who you are, the mentally ill hit harder with a baseball bat than they do bare handed.

No the show didnt debunk myths but what I am really trying to get at here is not the show but glen levy's punch. heck, after the first half of the show the rest was really awful in my opinion, and as for the brick breakers, I thought that part was pathetic. Throw a dead cat hard enough and it will break a brick, infact, I don't think a 200+lb guy could NOT break those bricks to be honest. I've seen brick breaking a thousand times and it never impresses me, ever. I think of it as a cheap physics trick to impress the simple people like laying on a bed of nails. 1000 nails gives enough surface area for ur weight so that none penetrate, big deal. You have your assistant break a block of ice on ur chest with a sledge hammer? So what, if he does it right you hardly feel it. But glen's punch was measured along side bigger faster guys and he hit harder. I wanna know how. Not cause I think its magic or mystical but so that I can try it.

Also, while the show didnt debunk myths it also never acknowledged them, it never even mentioned them charging inner energy or whatever aside from when the veteran martial artist guy that we all know from a gazillion action movies mentioned that most martial arts believe in the mystic ability to go beyond the norm into supernatural abilities, but they didnt have anyone try to fire an "energy ball" or shove something with their "ki" or use their shaolin iron shirt to block a knife, they realize that stuff is crap so they didnt do it is what I think.

and phrost, u being in mma should know damn well that nobody hits as hard as they kick unless they were born without the use of their legs or simply choose not to kick at all like tank abbot for instance. You find a guy that weighs less than you and punches harder than you kick, I honestly dare you to try if your at all proud of your legs then you shouldnt be able to. LOL I just realized even most fighting video games realize this! In tekken and streeth fighter I remember clearly, disregarding special attacks, basic punches do less damage than basic kicks. I find this to be undisputable proof haha.

well jmercer the reason I said he hit harder then the curren heavyweight champs like fedor and tim silva is because I've seen them both land dead on shots and not kill their opponent. The baseball bat to the head of the dummy was measured as enough to kill a human and they clearly said that glen levys punch showed numbers higher than that. Thus, ipso facto, if fedor hit like glen levy, he would have a good chance of killing his opponent. That just seems like logic to me.

yes the show did make it seem as if each style was linked to each of the abilities they stressed in each person but you have to admit that its likely the balance of glen levy is infact from his ninjitsu training. The kind of balance that makes other martial artists wobble and fall is not a passive trait last time I checked. Ok, some kid is 5 and can play the piano like a pro, i've seen that on TV b4 too, but thats fingers not your whole body. They also pointed out that glen was somehow taking advantage of every bone in his foot at the same time to maintain this balance? I dunno how thats possible either, but I highly doubt he was born with it.

dustin, the 130lb and 230lb guys hitting power is what is cuasing this argument, glen levy's little 150lb TOPS frame is supporting more power than the 200lb guy WITH A CROBAR. Also, I don't care who you are, the mentally ill hit harder with a baseball bat than they do bare handed.

No the show didnt debunk myths but what I am really trying to get at here is not the show but glen levy's punch. heck, after the first half of the show the rest was really awful in my opinion, and as for the brick breakers, I thought that part was pathetic. Throw a dead cat hard enough and it will break a brick, infact, I don't think a 200+lb guy could NOT break those bricks to be honest. I've seen brick breaking a thousand times and it never impresses me, ever. I think of it as a cheap physics trick to impress the simple people like laying on a bed of nails. 1000 nails gives enough surface area for ur weight so that none penetrate, big deal. You have your assistant break a block of ice on ur chest with a sledge hammer? So what, if he does it right you hardly feel it. But glen's punch was measured along side bigger faster guys and he hit harder. I wanna know how. Not cause I think its magic or mystical but so that I can try it.

Also, while the show didnt debunk myths it also never acknowledged them, it never even mentioned them charging inner energy or whatever aside from when the veteran martial artist guy that we all know from a gazillion action movies mentioned that most martial arts believe in the mystic ability to go beyond the norm into supernatural abilities, but they didnt have anyone try to fire an "energy ball" or shove something with their "ki" or use their shaolin iron shirt to block a knife, they realize that stuff is crap so they didnt do it is what I think.

and phrost, u being in mma should know damn well that nobody hits as hard as they kick unless they were born without the use of their legs or simply choose not to kick at all like tank abbot for instance. You find a guy that weighs less than you and punches harder than you kick, I honestly dare you to try if your at all proud of your legs then you shouldnt be able to. LOL I just realized even most fighting video games realize this! In tekken and streeth fighter I remember clearly, disregarding special attacks, basic punches do less damage than basic kicks. I find this to be undisputable proof haha.

while I think they all did only have 1 or 2 shots (they actually show 2 different strikes from glen levy if u watch closely) they also did things like show the muay thai low kick break a few boards and mentioned on whole banana tree kicking thing while doing so, I think after they gave them 1 shot for data I doubt that they would spend that much money on that room to let each have 1 shot and call it quits.

For the competition aspect of the show I am sure they sold it that way, but like I said, if you watch close you can see some were allowed more than 1 strike even during the power testing. Not to mention that they were allowed to strike multiple times atleast when you consider that they did punching, kicking, and speed attacks. I'd also bet that they went ahead and tested the other fighters balance as well as glen levys with their foot pad monitors but I doubt they showed it because of its lack of impressiveness. You will also notice sometimes they didnt even show the karata attempt at certain things but I highly doubt they told the guy to just sit back and watch. I am sure they didnt show every attempt on the actual TV show.

Infact I would be willing to bet that even the technicians themselves and even the weapon experts took a punch or kick at the dummy...I mean its made to withstand a car crash its not like its gonna hurt it haha.

...Infact I would be willing to bet that even the technicians themselves and even the weapon experts took a punch or kick at the dummy...I mean its made to withstand a car crash its not like its gonna hurt it haha.

well jmercer the reason I said he hit harder then the curren heavyweight champs like fedor and tim silva is because I've seen them both land dead on shots and not kill their opponent.

And it's very likely that levy wouldn't kill someone with a single shot, either.

Originally Posted by krelnius

The baseball bat to the head of the dummy was measured as enough to kill a human and they clearly said that glen levys punch showed numbers higher than that. Thus, ipso facto, if fedor hit like glen levy, he would have a good chance of killing his opponent. That just seems like logic to me.

It's logical, but not correct. Force is not the only factor involved in a strike; you also have to consider the dimensions of the area delivering the strike, as well as the characteristics of the striking implement delivering the force. The amount of force delivered is one factor; the efficiency of delivery is another one that matters.

If you are struck by a baseball bat, the force will be transmitted (initially) by only a small part of the surface. Since the force is confined to a smaller area, it will deliver more force per square inch in the area it contacts. While I obviously can't measure it here, I'll bet that the contact area of a human fist or palm is quite a bit larger than the contact area of a baseball bat would be... and the larger the area of delivery, the more diluted the result would be. In example, a baseball bat can shatter a human skull with one hit; I've yet to see a punch capable of that kind of damage.

Additionally, a wooden bat is harder than the human fist... and more rigid than the human arm. This further increases the efficiency of the transfer of force to the target.

By contrast, the human hand is composed of soft tissue and bones, all tied together by ligaments and other connective tissue. It's a flexible instrument which is capable of absorbing force; in fact, it's impossible to not absorb force with it during a strike. (Athough the amount absorbed can be minimized.) There's a reason that many martial arts emphasize lining up the joints and bones during a strike; it's because that technique improves the use of the more rigid bone structure, making force delivery more efficient while reducing the delivery area involved.

However, no matter how you view it, you really can't compare the hit from a baseball bat to a strike from a hand. Weapons (such as a baseball bat) are considered "force multipliers" because they are much more effective at hurting the target than using one's bare hands.

This is why Ug the Caveman stopped hitting his enemies with his fists and picked up a rock... and then a bone and/or stick. If fists and feet were as effective as sticks and stones, we'd still be doing all our fighting with 'em.

Yes! Thats exactly what I'm saying! A human hand CAN'T be compared to a baseball bat, atleast not to my knowledge. But they compared glen levy's hand to a bat being used by a fairly big guy and levy came out on top.

Sure a bat is harder and a hand probably isnt gonna break a skull, its probably gonna shatter its fingers and cry, true, but thats not what they were testing on the dummy. They tested the force it generated and said the FORCE of the bats hit was enough to kill a person. This was a bat to the head. Glen levy's blow was more powerful in their measurment of force and it was recorded as enough to stop the human heart given the place he chose to strike, not the head but what appeared to be a little above the solar plexus.

Regardless of how hard the bat is or how soft a hand is, he still generated more force according to dummies and insrtruments used to test car crashes. Given this, I'd say while its not gonna prove his hand can break a skull, a strike like this to the right point on the head or just to the stomach/chest could easily cause enough internal damage to kill you in a few minutes if not immediately. Yes, the muay thai knee was compared to a 35mph car crashes damage to the human body but a muay thai knee incorporates the entire body in the blow using both arms to clench the opponent while using one leg to help maintain power while thrusting the opposite legs knee into the opponent. Using your entire body in a powerful LEG BASED attack should always do more than a fist based attack to the same area in almost all cases.

There is a reason UFC has rules against knees and kicks to the head of an opponent that isnt standing (on his back/knees) its because their so dangerous. Punches on a fallen opponent? Completely fine. No worries there. I think this further stresses my point that nobody kicks like they punch and a 150lb guy should not be able to punch as hard as a 200lb guy kicks. It doesnt make any sense, the muscles in the legs are even larger.

Glen also had the best balance according to the show, do you guys think that any connections exists there? I mean I've noticed a huge difference in the power and speed of my hits/kicks when I get the techniques just right and part of that is balance but I don't think it could possibly change the damage so much that such a small guy could out punch a 200lb tkd champs spinning back kick. Any ideas?

Before making any assumptions regarding this fellow, I'd like to see a lot more trials under much more controlled conditions. The whole tenor of the show was, as has been discussed, more along the lines of "made for TV" rather than a serious examination of things.

As to whether there was any of that or not... I don't know. However, there's no doubt that the producers carefully provided a framework for results that would support the cherished beliefs of some MA fans and practitioners. It's all about the mystique.

I might have an answer. I dont know any of this fight stuff, and I havent seen the show, but I do understand impact measurment technology to a degree.

When testing knee pads and shinguards for various impacts of things like bike frames and bike pedals, we saw some weirdness. MASSIVE frame impacts were showing up with less force than relatively minor axle strikes.

Turned out our feedback system averaged the total force on sensors which recieved an impact above a certain threshold, added them together then divided by the number of sensors that went over the threshold to give the impact rating.

The big round frames were activating a lot of sensors, but as thir rounded edges moved away, only really made force on the leading edge.

The axle hits however, activated only a few sensors and were ALL business

In reality the difference in force was like running through a thin branch and breaking it off for the axle, and running right into a tree trunk for the frame strike, but the tests showed quite different.

First off, I did list the possibility of glen having cheated somehow. I also listed the posibility of him knowing something the others didnt. Maybe he talked a lot to the technicians and is smart enough to find a way to exploit their measuring tools by hitting a certain place or certain way. I did not say this wasnt possible, the part I don't think is possible is his fist hitting harder than the bat.

in response to robinson and jmercer if u watch the video again u can see that the guy using the sledge to show how "tough" the bricks are is the same guy that does the whole shoulder charge...as in, he is part of the act. Ofcourse he isnt gonna demolish them with the hammer it would make them look bad. I'm not just being paranoid here either cause if u watch he barely swings the sledge at all. I've chopped wood with an axe for years and he isnt even trying with that sledgehammer. I've also done deconstruction with my father and I know for a fact that I can put a sledge through a solid wall of concrete bricks no problem and I am only 150-160lbs.

Also, if u watch the video you can see that when they do the shoulder charge his shoulder doesnt even touch the last brick, its just a result of the first bricks breaking and the force of the first few breaks finishing the job like a domino effect. Same with the elbow strike, his elbow never touches the last brick at all, but it breaks. Magic? No, its simply an easily broken piece of rock. If you guys really don't think so, my dad has about 1000 cinder blocks, the ones that look like an 8 laying sideways, like an infinity sine with squared edges I guess. I forget their specific name, but I don't think he would care if I tried elbowing, punching, kicking or even taking a sledge to a few of them.

Also, if you have ever been in a wreck at all at any speed you know how violent and forceful it is. Glen's punched was said to have depressed the chest plate 2 inches, the same with the muay thai knee and was enough to be compared to a 35mph car crash...I guess in a 35mph car crash the chest gets compressed about 2 inches? My point is, I've wrecked a car when the breaks went out and I was only going about 10 and all I did was hit some dirt and junk, not a solid wall and it still hit me hard. If it takes a 35mph car crash into a solid wall to compress the chest 2 inches (i guess when the chest hits the wheel) then I'd go as far as to say this is also outside the realm of a punch from a 150lb guy.

Although, their are quotes from a person hit by te legend bruce lee's straight kick that said it was "like being hit by a car".

Also, if you have ever been in a wreck at all at any speed you know how violent and forceful it is. Glen's punched was said to have depressed the chest plate 2 inches, the same with the muay thai knee and was enough to be compared to a 35mph car crash...I guess in a 35mph car crash the chest gets compressed about 2 inches? My point is, I've wrecked a car when the breaks went out and I was only going about 10 and all I did was hit some dirt and junk, not a solid wall and it still hit me hard. If it takes a 35mph car crash into a solid wall to compress the chest 2 inches (i guess when the chest hits the wheel) then I'd go as far as to say this is also outside the realm of a punch from a 150lb guy.

Although, their are quotes from a person hit by te legend bruce lee's straight kick that said it was "like being hit by a car".

You have to be careful with the car analogy; there's a big difference between what happens in a car and what happens with a punch. Frankly, their comparison sucks. In a car, your entire body mass is added to the force of the acceleration, and you're hitting something unyielding - even a break-away steering wheel provides resistance up to a point.

The comparision is more showmanship than accurate. A better comparison would have been a heavily padded log suspended in a sling, and how far it would have to have been drawn back to simulate the punch. I suspect that example would have been more accurate - and more disappointing.

The reason the sledge hammer wasn't able to go through all of the bricks and the man was is because with the sledgehammer you can't continue to put pressure all of the way through the strike, All of the pressure is put into the initial blow and thats it. However the man was able to do the strike and then continue to put all of his bodyweight down onto the brocks to continue crushing them. Don't forget he was over 250lbs.

Which is an utterly suspicious anomaly, IMHO. Never met a concrete brick I couldn't smash with a sledge. Ever.

Did you watch the show? It was a huge ass stack of bricks, and he did bust about half of them with the sledge. The point was, people think it is a trick, and that the first block breaks the rest, a domino effect.

Clearly not so.

Originally Posted by Dustin

The reason the sledge hammer wasn't able to go through....

True. In fact, didn't they point that out in the slow motion of him smashing the bricks? That he kept following through almost to the end?

And that stuff about how the bones change with constant hitting stuff, that is a medical fact.